The Positive Effect of Diffused versus Direct Light on Plant Health, Vigor and Yields
- Thread starter Uncle Ben
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Uncle Ben
Well-Known Member
I took as a rhetorical question. Seems I don't have the "inverse" issues you guys have. If you're not getting good bud development at lower levels, beats the hell outta me.
UB
Uncle Ben
Well-Known Member
Welcome to the forum.
Vertical lighting? I don't buy into it. It's all about logistics. There are a dozen ways to get "good numbers". Just have to plan your garden and follow your plan.
Good luck,
UB
dannyboy602
Well-Known Member
^
^
Sup UB. I read a book by Jorge Cervantes recently and I read where he mentioned you. Man you do get around.
Also read Ed Rosenthal's book. Wow. Now that's some good info.
^
Sup UB. I read a book by Jorge Cervantes recently and I read where he mentioned you. Man you do get around.
Also read Ed Rosenthal's book. Wow. Now that's some good info.
Murfy
Well-Known Member
this is interesting to me-
i don't use hoods. i believe it takes alot of the good out of the light. i do notice that buds exposed to direct light grow faster, its limited to those flowers, lower ones will slow, but have increased potency. delivering sufficient levels of light to the BASE of the plant produces far more, as all flowers are producing at an equal rate, rather than top flowers goimg strong and the rest of the plant wispy.
i don't use hoods. i believe it takes alot of the good out of the light. i do notice that buds exposed to direct light grow faster, its limited to those flowers, lower ones will slow, but have increased potency. delivering sufficient levels of light to the BASE of the plant produces far more, as all flowers are producing at an equal rate, rather than top flowers goimg strong and the rest of the plant wispy.
mccumcumber
Well-Known Member
Cutting the bottom growth in scrog is bad idea in my opinion.
The bottom growth does absolutely no harm to your plant if you give the nutrients the plant needs to support it. There are still a bunch of photons penetrating your canopy that can and will be absorbed by the lower foliage. Even the smallest opening in your canopy (believe me there is, photons are pretty fucking small) will provide light for all the lower foliage because of light's properties.
Knowing the way light works is pretty important to growing.
http://quantumartandpoetry.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
You don't really need to understand Einstein's theory and the other Quantum applications, just take a look at the double slit experiment. May I remind you that photons are subatomic particles, so they will find a hole and started spreading out rapidly in a wave. Think about water in a river going through a very thin area. Sure at that area it's super thin, but east of the super thin area (arbitrary example) the river thickens back out again. Should we dam up the area west of the thin slit... no! That's how you cause floods in one area and drought/chaos in another area. Just look at the dams in the Sierra Nevadas... did you know that there used to be lakes in bakersfield and the central valley.
http://www.history-map.com/picture/001/California-1800s-Late-Map.htm
The bottom growth does absolutely no harm to your plant if you give the nutrients the plant needs to support it. There are still a bunch of photons penetrating your canopy that can and will be absorbed by the lower foliage. Even the smallest opening in your canopy (believe me there is, photons are pretty fucking small) will provide light for all the lower foliage because of light's properties.
Knowing the way light works is pretty important to growing.
http://quantumartandpoetry.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
You don't really need to understand Einstein's theory and the other Quantum applications, just take a look at the double slit experiment. May I remind you that photons are subatomic particles, so they will find a hole and started spreading out rapidly in a wave. Think about water in a river going through a very thin area. Sure at that area it's super thin, but east of the super thin area (arbitrary example) the river thickens back out again. Should we dam up the area west of the thin slit... no! That's how you cause floods in one area and drought/chaos in another area. Just look at the dams in the Sierra Nevadas... did you know that there used to be lakes in bakersfield and the central valley.
http://www.history-map.com/picture/001/California-1800s-Late-Map.htm
Uncle Ben
Well-Known Member
I could write a book on this stuff (and about have)..... in short just gonna say that you need to understand how a HID emits light (the poles do not emit light), the dynamics of hoods regarding redirecting light, etc.
Lower plant area is receiving mostly FR light due to filtering effects of leaves, unless you have really good reflecting panels and use white "mulch".
UB
bud nugbong
Well-Known Member
yea im big on the reflection of light...why let it go straight for 4 feet and do nothing...bounce that shit back and use it.
IMO its one of the most important things to do inside under lights.
IMO its one of the most important things to do inside under lights.
My420
Active Member
Am I reading this post right? 1000 grams per watt? Also your going to run 10k watts with 40 plants? Am I the only one who is asking myself WTF this dude is high on?
My420
Active Member
Interesting thought.. I disagree from experience about cutting the lower growth especially when talking about Scrog since the idea of that is to make a even thick canopy to get more bigger top buds. Why leave anything on that ( if done right you will get BARELY any light to the bottom stalks or buds) does not get good light and takes up nutrients? So what your saying is no matter how little of light it gets it will still produce as much as one on top of canopy or as good or just saying it will produce with any amount of tiny light? I think i am misunderstanding you on that comment because side by side comparison in the same environment different trays the ones that were we cut off everything that did not reach my canopy produced more. But I also learned that if you do not do this by week 2-2 and 1/2 at the latest before flower production it will not matter. The others produced nice tops but not as big as the others and have a lot of smaller not as dense pieces all over it and produced less. for example one plant same size cutting lower stems I got a HUGE top cola and the side branches that were on top of the canopy also were much bigger then the others and produced more. One plant non cut 2 oz 1.1 grams. Other plant produced 2 oz 18.3 grams dried. I got WAY less smaller pieces that you get from those tinny midget branches and got more production. Also have you tried both ways yourself? I have and I know it works for me.
SCARHOLE
Well-Known Member
Im Not a physics teacher or anything but....
Mirrors are Very reflective 95%+. so I guess the glass is eating 5% of the light, no problem there.
Outdoors or in Very intinse light Mirror may me dagerous with heat(use white for reflection).
But mirrors do not seen to dangerous indoors in little cabs like mine.
Ive noticed that...
Distance dosent matter as much when reflecting with a mirror?
I can see the reflection of sun off a mirror for 100s an 100s of feet.
Specular reflection (mirrors flash ) dosent seem to follow inverse sqare law?
Any thought on this UB?
mccumcumber
Well-Known Member
I'm pretty positive that mirrors reflect scattered light into one focused area... so that may not be too beneficial. I remember a while back learning some interesting equations involving mirrors, but that was two years ago unfortunately 
.
Ah, good questions. First off, when I first started growing, I used to cut off a little bit of lower growth. I thought that it was pretty fucking useless, and that it took away useful plant energy. I later changed my opinion after my grow last summer, when I just let the plants do there thing to see what would happen. It wasn't an official test with the same strain, so I didn't bother to compare yields, but I was very pleased with my final product, and have personally decided to keep as much growth on as possible. This is around 95% of the reason why I try to say that it is my opinion rather than fact, I have not done an actual compared test, so I cannot make a definitive statement, I just like the results that I happened to get. I never tried scrog till recently, and I am doing a run without cutting off the growth right now. Trying to test out my opinion. I just switched the cycle to 12/12, and the screen is being filled out nicely. And the lower fan leaves that seem to be in shade, are actually "in praying position" toward the sides of my diy grow box, so for the time being at least, I'm pretty sure they're still getting some light. It will be very interesting to see in about two weeks when my whole canopy is filled up and bud starts forming.
Secondly, what I'm saying is that even the tinniest holes in your scrog (and I mean tiny at the quantum level) will leak light out to the lower growth. There will be numerous (quantum level tiny) holes in your canopy, and because light is both a wave and a particle, it will slip through the holes and start distributing itself over all of the lower growth. The amount of light may be small, but you add that to diffused light that bounces around the grow room and will eventually make its way out of your room or into some leaves. Being able to ensure that all of the light that does not go to your canopy goes somewhere will probably only help you.
I'm very intrigued about your test results. It makes me think I'm missing something. I just don't understand how removing growth helps the plant. I don't quite know enough about plant horticulture (which I am really trying to learn more about... I'm taking as many botany and horticulture electives as possible before I graduate) to make a ratio that would determine the significance of cutting off lower growth. Your grow makes me think that the amounts of energy that the lower growth uses up is substantial. I may just have to cut off some of the lower growth on one of my plants this time around to see the results. I'm also doing a scrog outdoor this year (height is a very big issue for me outdoors for various reasons), so if I do indeed get better results pruning indoors then I'll try it on my scrog outdoors too.
.Ah, good questions. First off, when I first started growing, I used to cut off a little bit of lower growth. I thought that it was pretty fucking useless, and that it took away useful plant energy. I later changed my opinion after my grow last summer, when I just let the plants do there thing to see what would happen. It wasn't an official test with the same strain, so I didn't bother to compare yields, but I was very pleased with my final product, and have personally decided to keep as much growth on as possible. This is around 95% of the reason why I try to say that it is my opinion rather than fact, I have not done an actual compared test, so I cannot make a definitive statement, I just like the results that I happened to get. I never tried scrog till recently, and I am doing a run without cutting off the growth right now. Trying to test out my opinion. I just switched the cycle to 12/12, and the screen is being filled out nicely. And the lower fan leaves that seem to be in shade, are actually "in praying position" toward the sides of my diy grow box, so for the time being at least, I'm pretty sure they're still getting some light. It will be very interesting to see in about two weeks when my whole canopy is filled up and bud starts forming.
Secondly, what I'm saying is that even the tinniest holes in your scrog (and I mean tiny at the quantum level) will leak light out to the lower growth. There will be numerous (quantum level tiny) holes in your canopy, and because light is both a wave and a particle, it will slip through the holes and start distributing itself over all of the lower growth. The amount of light may be small, but you add that to diffused light that bounces around the grow room and will eventually make its way out of your room or into some leaves. Being able to ensure that all of the light that does not go to your canopy goes somewhere will probably only help you.
I'm very intrigued about your test results. It makes me think I'm missing something. I just don't understand how removing growth helps the plant. I don't quite know enough about plant horticulture (which I am really trying to learn more about... I'm taking as many botany and horticulture electives as possible before I graduate) to make a ratio that would determine the significance of cutting off lower growth. Your grow makes me think that the amounts of energy that the lower growth uses up is substantial. I may just have to cut off some of the lower growth on one of my plants this time around to see the results. I'm also doing a scrog outdoor this year (height is a very big issue for me outdoors for various reasons), so if I do indeed get better results pruning indoors then I'll try it on my scrog outdoors too.
VICTORYGARDENSHYDRO
New Member
I saw this at a display at last years growla show, I have recommended it several times and all customers have come back with nothing but good things to say.It costs a little more then mylar, but the reflective properties are huge.
UB did not answer your question about specular reflection from mirrors, regarding the inverse square law.
Specular reflection is no exception, they will follow the inverse-square-law too. So if you are keeping the mirrors because of this belief, you should reconsider.
Mylar can be found for both specular and diffuse reflection, I would go for the diffuse one.
From wikipedia: "Reflection of light is either specular (mirror-like) or diffuse (retaining the energy, but losing the image) depending on the nature of the interface.".
So diffused light does not mean less light, from wikipedia:
"
Diffuse reflection is the reflection of light from a surface such that an incident ray is reflected at many angles rather than at just one angle as in the case of specular reflection. A diffuse reflecting surface will have equal luminance from all directions in the hemisphere surrounding the surface.
"
To me, this means diffuse reflection is best.
Uncle Ben
Well-Known Member
That's because it is such an elementary concept that I didn't bother. FWIW, I retrofitted specular aluminum pieces into a gull wing shaped horizontal hood.
Buy a light meter and remove all doubt.
allen bud
Active Member
Ive' been useing the flat white painted walls with my grows from the 80's till 2 years ago tried mylar did 1 grow and thew it away.lol..useing whate white walls again,I have alway felt that with the flat white and white floor, i have been useing the defused light for better lower branching development ,and you have helped me to add some proof to my own questions.I do not prune at all but UB toping ,super crop then lST thats it and i end up with big full happy plants.....and cudos for getting into jorge's "Bible",yup just rereading stuff,got jorge's latest book and BAM theres UB!!!!!(ok i know the book came out in 06 but..)
any way think ill see if i can work some angled panel in there to help even more!...peace...
any way think ill see if i can work some angled panel in there to help even more!...peace...
endogarden
New Member
I was interested in the Super Spreaders for this reason as well, but when I opened one up in the hydro store, it seemed like such a cheap POS, I couldn't imagine paying $35 bucks for it, let alone 4 of them total for the rest of my lights. Do they really work well? Anyone tried or seen a side by side? I just can't imagine that for all the talk of glass coated aluminum reflection blah blah, if you look at the actual device, it looks like a cheap CNC cut thin strip of aluminum, for $35. I was going to buy it, until I saw it, at which point the guy at the hydro store was also like, "yeah......" when I commented on how cheapo it appeared. Any thoughts?
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